Wilf Day's Blog

Friday, November 3, 2017

BC’s
NDP government is moving to implement Proportional Representation. What would Ontario’s
2014 election results have been with proportional representation?

Andrea Horwath wants to make
every vote count

Ontario
NDP leader Andrea Horwath told a public Town Hall event Oct. 18 “proportional
representation makes a lot of sense, it has always been one of the things New
Democrats have supported and believed in. It brings you a government that’s
more reflective of the community at large, we see governments with that voting
system have many more women elected to office, and greater diversity.”

Every MPP represents actual
voters and real communities

We’re not
talking about a model with candidates appointed by central parties. We’re
talking about the mixed member systemdesigned
by the Law Commission of Canada and endorsed by the Ontario NDP Convention in
2014, where every MPP represents actual voters and real communities. The
majority of MPPs will be elected by local ridings as we do today, preserving
the traditional link between voter and MPP. The other 40% are elected as regional
MPPs, topping-up the numbers of MPPs from your local region so the total is
proportional to the votes for each party.

You have
two votes. One is for your local MPP. The second helps elect regional MPs,
topping-up the numbers of MPs from your local region so the total is
proportional to the votes for each party. The ballot would look like this ballot that PEI voters chose a year ago.

Unlike
the closed-list MMP model Ontario voters did not support in 2007,
you can
cast a personal vote for a candidate within the regional list. This is commonly called “open list.” All MPPs have faced the voters. No
one is guaranteed a seat. The region is small enough that the
regional MPPs are accountable.

The ten missing NDP MPPs.

If all NDP voters had equal and effective votes, they would have elected
ten more MPPs in 2014.

In Toronto NDP voters cast 22% of the votes but elected only two MPPs,
missing three more like Michael Prue and Jonah Schein and Tom Rakocevic or
Rosario Marchese or Paul Ferreira.

In East Central Ontario NDP voters cast 20% of the votes but elected no
one, missing two like Kingston’s Mary Rita Holland and Peterborough’s Sheila
Wood.

In West Central Ontario (Waterloo—Bruce—Simcoe) NDP voters cast 19% of the votes but
elected only one MPP, missing two more like Jan Johnstone from Bruce County and Guelph’s
James Gordon.

In Peel and Halton NDP voters cast 18% of the votes but elected only one
MPP, missing one more like Brampton’s Gurpreet Dhillon or Gugni Gill Panaich.

In York and Durham Regions NDP voters cast 17% of the votes but elected
only one MPP, missing one more like York Region lawyer Laura Bowman.

In the Ottawa-Cornwall region NDP voters cast 14% of the votes but
elected no one, missing one like Ottawa’s Jennifer McKenzie or Cornwall’s
Elaine MacDonald.

The five missing Green MPPs
Green voters cast 8.3% of the votes in West Central Ontario, and
deserved to elect their leader Mike Schreiner who got 19% of the votes in
Guelph. They cast 5.5% of the votes in Ottawa—Cornwall region, and deserved to
elect someone like Dave Bagler or Kevin O’Donnell. They cast 4.5% of the votes
in Peel and Halton, and deserved to elect Karren Wallace who got 17% of the
votes in Dufferin-Caledon. They cast 3.9% of the votes in Toronto, and deserved
to elect someone like Tim Grant or Rachel Power. They cast 3.7% of the votes in
York—Durham, and deserved to elect someone like David Elgie, son of Ontario cabinet
minister Bob Elgie.

Winner-take-all
voting systems notoriously favour party strongholds. Voters living in them have
an MPP in their party’s caucus. Others find no one at Queen’s Park to
call.

Ontario’s
accidental majority government, elected to stop Tim Hudak, looks dominated by
the GTA. Almost two-thirds of Liberal MPPs are from the GTA.

Invisible Liberal votersBut electing
a Liberal MPP in the GTA took only 25,326 votes, while it took 45,026 outside
the GTA. In the GTA 962,385 Liberal voters elected 38 MPPs, while outside the
GTA, 900,522 Liberal voters elected only 20 MPPs.

Proportional representation is
not a partisan issue.

Our winner-take-all
system left many invisible Liberal voters outside the GTA unheard in the
government caucus. Like all those Alberta and Saskatchewan Liberals whose
voices are seldom heard in Ottawa.

If all Liberal voters had equal and effective votes, they would have
elected MPPs like Terry Johnson in Chatham, Mike Radan in Middlesex, and Dr.
Catherine Whiting in North Bay.

Unrepresented conservative voters

Meanwhile, the official opposition has a mirror image of the same
problem. Their caucus has no representative of the 205,996 Toronto Progressive
Conservative voters, and only four from the rest of the GTA. Yet, in
West Central Ontario, where only 37% of voters voted PC, they elected eight
of those 13 MPPs. In East Central Ontario, where only 40% of voters voted PC,
they elected five of those eight MPPs. In Southwestern Ontario, where only 32%
of voters voted PC, they elected five of those 11 MPPs.

False Majorities

Voters
for parties with geographic strongholds elect governments with false majorities,
thanks to the seat bonus from their strongholds. Voters for parties with no
strongholds, like the Greens, have no voice at Queen’s Park

Overall, a fair voting system would have let voters elect 42 Liberals, 33
PCs, 27 NDP and five Greens.

This projection assumes voters voted as they did in 2014. In fact, more would have voted. And some would have voted differently
-- no more strategic voting. We would likely have seen different candidates --
more women, and more diversity of all kinds. We could have seen different
parties. Who knows who might have won real democratic elections?

A manufactured majority

In a
truly democratic system, parties representing a true majority of voters would
have to work together. As former Attorney-General John Gerretsen liked to say,
“Nobody is ever 100-per-cent right and nobody is ever 100-per-cent wrong.
Governing is the art of compromise. There’s nothing wrong with having the
governing party take into account smaller parties.”

The
2014 election was all about rejection of Tim Hudak’s platform. In the process, voters
accidentally elected a government with a manufactured majority of MPPs
supported by less than 39% of voters. It has no legislative accountability to
representatives of the majority of voters.

Competing MPs

Fair Vote Canada says “We must
give rural and urban voters in every province, territory and regional community
effective votes and fair representation in both government and opposition.”
The Law Commission model would
give citizens competing MPs: a local MP, and a few regional MPs from a “top-up
region” based in their area. Scotland uses regions of 16 MPs, Wales 12. I’m
assuming a typical region would have 11 MPPs: seven local, four regional “top-up.”
Generally, three of today’s ridings become two larger local ridings.

There's more. With two votes, you can vote for the party you want in
government. And you can also vote for the local candidate you like best
regardless of party, without hurting your party, since it's the second ballot
that determines the party make-up of the legislature. About 30% of voters split
their ballots this way in New Zealand with a similar system.

Fair Vote Canada says “A
democratic voting system must encourage citizens to exercise positive choice by
voting for the candidate or party they prefer.”

Accountable MPPs

With the same 107 MPPs we have today, I’m assuming 65 MPPs would still
be elected from larger local ridings, and 42 MPPs would be elected regionally. These regions are large enough that voters
for every major party would be represented in every region.

Regional MPPs

Who would those regional
MPPs be? First, each party would hold regional nomination meetings and/or vote
online to nominate their regional candidates. These would often be the same
people nominated locally, plus a few additional regional candidates. The
meeting would decide what rank order each would have on the regional ballot.
But then voters in the region would have the final choice.

Proportional

With top-up regions of about 11 MPPs each, the results are very close to perfect proportionality. Green Party voters
elect the five MPPs they deserve.

Power to the voters
An exciting prospect: voters have new power to elect who they like. New voices
from new forces in the legislature, more voter choice. No one party rolls the
dice and wins an artificial majority. Cooperation will have a higher value than
vitriolic rhetoric. One-party dominance by the Premier’s office will, at last,
be out of fashion. Governments will have to listen to MPPs, and MPPs will have
to really listen to the people. MPPs can act as the public servants they are
supposed to be.

The models in Ontario and PEI which failed referendums had closed
province-wide lists for the additional “top-up” MPPs. This failure
was no surprise to the Jenkins Commission. Jenkins said top-up MPs locally
anchored to small areas are “more easily assimilable into the political culture
and indeed the Parliamentary system than would be a flock of unattached birds
clouding the sky and wheeling under central party directions.”

Diversity

Clearly this would allow fair representation
of Ontario’s political diversity in each region.

Would this model also help reflect in the
Legislature the diversity of society, removing barriers to the nomination and
election of candidates from groups now underrepresented including women,
cultural minorities and Aboriginals? Polls show that 90% of Canadian voters
would like to see more women elected. If they can choose from several of their
party's regional candidates, they'll almost certainly elect more women. And as long as a party is nominating at least five
regional candidates, you can expect them to nominate a diverse group.
With four regional MPs from a region, and seven local MPs, a major party would
want more than five regional candidates, since any candidates who win local
seats are removed from contention for regional seats.

Technical notesThis model was described in more detail by Prof. Henry Milner at an electoral
reform conference Feb. 21, 2009, where he recommended 14-MP regions. A similar
"open-list" model is used in the German province of Bavaria and was
proposed by Scotland's Arbuthnott Commission in 2006.

The calculation for any PR system has to
choose a rounding method, to round fractions up and down. I have used the
“largest remainder” calculation, which Germany used until recently, because it
is the simplest and most transparent. In a 10-MLA region, if Party A deserves
3.2 MLAs, Party B deserves 3.1, Party C deserves 2.3, and Party D deserves 1.4,
which party gets the tenth seat? Party D has a remainder of 0.4, the largest
remainder. In a region where one party wins a bonus (“overhang”), I allocate
the remaining seats among the remaining parties by the same calculation.

The Law Commission recommended that the right to nominate candidates for
regional top-up seats should be limited to those parties which have candidates
standing for election in at least one-third of the ridings within the top-up
region. This prevents a possible distortion of the system by parties pretending
to split into twin decoy parties for the regional seats, the trick which
Berlusconi invented to sabotage Italy’s voting system.

2 2. Candidates elected personally versus candidates
elected because of their position on a list?

Fair Vote Canada has said for years
that all MPs must face the voters. MMP with open lists is used in Bavaria. The
Law Commission of Canada recommended in 2004 that “allowing
voters to choose a candidate from the list provides voters with the ability to
select a specific individual and hold them accountable for their actions should
they be elected.” It is true that
the 2009 Ontario model for its referendum proposed 30% of MPPs should come from
closed province-wide lists. No one proposes this model today, but the enemies
of PR keep using arguments recycled from 2009.

3.3. MPs who serve constituents versus MPs who do not serve
constituents?

Some critics assume that regional
MPs will not have local offices and will not serve constituents. In fact, they
do, in Scotland, New Zealand, and even in party-centric Germany. The definitive
study on “two classes of MPs” in Germany was led by Prof. Louis Massicotte in
2004:

He concluded, in Chapter 8:“They
will substantially do the same work. . . . Voters do not usually know whether a
Bundestag member was directly or indirectly elected. . . . List members receive
as much mail from their constituents as do constituency members. . . .” After an exhaustive study of the roles of the
two types of MPs, he concludes: “The above data strongly support the prevailing
consensus in the literature: the existence of two types of parliamentary
mandates within the same parliament does not produce two unequal castes.”

4 4. Will regional MPs represent “Real Communities?”

If regional MPs plan to run again
at the next election, they will want to run locally as well; if their party
wins enough local seats their regional seat will evaporate. Even in Germany“since
most list candidates have contested constituencies — and perhaps hope to do so
again — they, too, will ‘nurse’ constituencies and undertake engagements
there.” Even regional MPs from a smaller party will be locally anchored to
small regions of perhaps 10 or 12 MPs, sometimes as few as seven.

(Note:
this blogpost has been revised on Oct. 8, 2017.) Do you want your vote to count?

You have two votes

You have two votes: one for your
local MLA, and for a regional MLA from your local region. You cast your second vote for a party’s regional candidate you prefer, which counts as
a vote for that party. This is the same practical model used in Scotland, withone
vital improvement: Canadian voters would like to vote for a specific
regional candidate and hold them accountable.

I’m assuming 52 local MLAs and 35
regional MLAs, so 60% of MLAs are elected in local districts as we do today.
The other 35 are elected from seven regions.

The regions have an average of 12 MLAs each: seven local, five regional.Every voter for any of the three parties in all seven regions has an MLA they helped elect, either from their local district or from their local region.

The best of both worlds

Would proportional representation hurt small communities? Just the opposite: voters
are guaranteed two things which equal better local representation:

1.
A local MLA who will champion their
area.

2.
An MLA whose views best reflect their values, someone they helped elect in
their local district or local region.

No
longer does one person claim to speak for everyone in the district. No longer
does one party claim unbridled power with only 40% support. Local districts are
bigger than today, but in return you have competing MLAs: a local MLA, and
about five regional MLAs from your local region.

Parties will work together

Parties
will, unless one party had outright majority support, have to work together -
to earn our trust where others have broken it, and to show that a new kind of
governance is possible. Research clearly shows that proportionately-elected
governments and cooperative decision-making produce better policy outcomes and
sustainable progress on major issues over the long term.

BC’s rural/urban divide

One factor I have left alone is the all-party consensus to protect the 17 electoral districts in the
North Region, the Cariboo-Thompson Region, and the Columbia-Kootenay Region,
largely rural and small-urban. These elected13 Liberals and four New Democrats in 2017. Any likely proportional system for BC
will keep the same regional balance. Thus, it is not surprising that my simulation
gives the Liberals a bonus of one MLA, at the
cost of the NDP. Province-wide result: 37 Liberals, 35 NDP, 15 GreensThe perfectly proportional result would have been 36
Liberal MLAs, 36 NDP MLAs, and 15 Greens. Instead, for the reason above, I get 37, 35 and 15. This
does not change the election outcome, since the parties will form the coalitions
they choose to form, regardless which party has a few more seats than the other.

Regional nominations

Typically, party members will
nominate local candidates first, then hold a regional nomination process. Often
the regional candidates will include the local candidates, plus a few
regional-only candidates who will add diversity and balance to the regional
slate. In order to ensure democratic nominations, it would be useful to deny
taxpayer subsidy to any party not nominating democratically. The meeting would decide what rank order each
would have on the regional ballot. But then voters in the region would have the
final choice.

A simulation

What follows is only a simulation
from the votes cast in 2017.In any
election, as Prof. Dennis
Pilon says: "Now keep in
mind that, when you change the voting system, you also change the incentives
that affect the kinds of decisions that voters might make. For instance, we
know that, when every vote counts, voters won't have to worry about splitting
the vote, or casting a strategic vote. Thus, we should expect that support for
different parties might change."

The North and the Cariboo Region

Instead of electing eight Liberal
MLAs and only two New Democrats, these voters would have elected another New
Democrat. That
would be the candidate who got the most votes across the region (after crossing
off the regional list those who were elected as Local MLAs). Maybe Anne Marie
Sam (an elected councilor with the Nak’azdli Nation) or Quesnel
city councilor Scott Elliott or Prince George labour lawyer Bobby Deepak.
And they would have elected a Green MLA, maybe Rita Giesbrecht from 100 Mile
House (Party Spokesperson for Rural development) or Nan Kendy from Prince
George.

The Interior including the Columbia—Kootenay Region and Kamloops

Instead of electing 12 Liberal MLAs and two New Democrats, these voters
would have elected two more New Democrats as well as Michelle Mungall and
Katrine Conroy. Maybe Harry Lali from Merritt and Barb Nederpel from Kamloops
or Barry Dorval from Vernon or Colleen Ross from Grand Forks or Gerry Taft from
Invermere. And Green voters would have elected three MLAs such as
former Nelson city councillor Kim Charlesworth (Party Spokesperson
for Agriculture and food systems), Dan Hines from Kamloops (Green Party
Spokesperson for Forestry), and Keli Westgate from Vernon.

Fraser Valley-Langley Region

Instead
of electing Liberal MLAs in all seven districts, these voters would have
elected two NDP MLAs such as Langley Teachers Association leader Gail
Chaddock-Costello and Chiliwack shelter director Patti MacAhonic, and a Green
MLA like Langley’s Bill Masse (Green Party Research and Policy Chair) or
Elizabeth Walker.

Vancouver—North Shore Region

Instead
of electing only ten NDP MLAs and six Liberal MLAs, these voters would have
elected three Green Party MLAs. Maybe Dana Taylor (he was a North Vancouver city
councilor), Kim Darwin from the Sunshine Coast (she was President of the
Sechelt Chamber of Commerce) and David Wong (architect and author
of ‘Escape to Gold Mountain’) or Prof. Michael Markwick (Party Spokesperson for
Democratic Security and Human Rights) or Jerry Kroll (Party Spokesperson on Transportation).

Burnaby—Tri-Cities—Maple Ridge
Region

Instead
of electing ten NDP MLAs and only one Liberal, these voters would have elected
a Green MLA (likely Jonina Campbell, New Westminster School Board chair and
Party Spokesperson for Education), as well as two Liberal incumbents
like Linda Reimer and Richard Lee.

Surrey-Delta-Richmond Region

Instead of electing only eight
Liberals and seven New Democrats, these voters would also have elected two
Green MLAs, such as Roy Sakata (retired school administrator
of Richmond School District) and Surrey’s Rita Fromholt or Delta’s Jacquie
Miller or White Rock’s Bill Marshall.

Vancouver Island

These voters would have elected
another Green MLA like Lia Versaevel from North Cowichan, Victoria’s Kalen
Harris, or Mark Neufeld (party spokesperson on Youth and
intergenerational equity), and
three more Liberal MLAs likeJim
Benningerfrom Comox, indigenous
leader Dallas Smith from North Island, and Nanaimo’s Paris Gaudet.

How will regional MPs
operate?

Most
regional MPs will each cover several ridings. This is just the way it’s done in Scotland, where each regional MP
normally covers about three local ridings, and holds office hours rotating
across them.

Overhangs

With
a regional MMP model, we risk local sweeps being so extreme that they create
“overhangs.” Those are results too disproportional for the regional compensatory
(“top-up”) MLAs to correct, when they are only 40% of the total. That’s the
trade-off in the system design, to keep local ridings from being almost double
their present size. In this simulation we find one overhang. The NDP near-sweep in Burnaby-Tri-Cities-Maple Ridge gives them an extra
MLA there, offsetting the NDP’s rural shortfall.

Technical note

The
calculation for any PR system has to choose a rounding method, to round
fractions up and down. I have used the “largest remainder” calculation, which
Germany used until recently, because it is the simplest and most transparent.
In a 10-MLA region, if Party A deserves 3.2 MLAs, Party B deserves 3.1, Party C
deserves 2.3, and Party D deserves 1.4, which party gets the tenth seat? Party
D has a remainder of 0.4, the largest remainder. In a region where one party
wins a bonus (“overhang”), I allocate the remaining seats among the remaining
parties by the same calculation.

To
keep voting simple, with no party lists, you can use the “best runner-up”
model.

You
cast only one vote, for your local MLA, which also counts as a vote for
that candidate’s party (if he or she has one). You have a local MLA, and regional
MLAs in top-up seats, just like the normal MMP model. But the candidates elected
to those regional seats are the local candidates who, while not elected
locally, got the highest vote percent of that party’s candidates in that
region.

The
party outcome is identical to the normal MMP model, but the regional MLAs are simply
the best runners-up in the region of the party whose voters are
under-represented in that region. The simple ballot is just like today’s
ballot.

Who
invented this model? No one, it is in actual use in the German province
of Baden-Wurttemberg. They’ve used it since 1952.

They
call it the Personalized No-List Proportional
System.

It’s
a very local model: the best runners-up are ranked only by how well
their local voters liked them.

True,
with no regional nomination process, a party’s members have no opportunity to nominate
additional regional candidates from minority groups, or women. Voters across
the region have no second vote, no opportunity to vote region-wide for the
regional candidate they prefer. And voters are not free to vote for a local
candidate of a different party than they want in government.

Still,
every MLA has faced the local voters, with one tiny exception: you still
need a regional nomination process to nominate a few alternate candidates.
Suppose voters for a party cast 67% of the votes in a 12-MLA region, and elect MLAs
in all seven local seats. They are entitled to elect an eighth MLA, a regional
MLA to top-up the regional results, but the party has no best-runners up in the
region. So it will have to be the top candidate on the party’s regional list.
Yes, ranked by the party’s nomination process, not by the voters, but this will
happen very rarely, if ever.

The
government, after the public consultations, may decide to put more than one PR
model on the ballot. This one would be a simple and practical alternative.

Eight region model:

Some
people feel the North Shore has a unique character, despite having only five
MLAs (including Powell River-Sunshine Coast), and should be its own region. This has the advantage of letting Richmond be
paired with Vancouver rather than with Surrey, a better match. So here’s that
alternative. (Sadly, it elects one less Green: 38 Liberals, 36 NDP, and 14 Greens):

Vancouver—Richmond Region

Instead
of electing only eight NDP MLAs and seven Liberal MLAs, these voters would also
have elected two Green Party MLAs. Maybe David Wong (architect and author of
‘Escape to Gold Mountain’) and elected school trustee Janet Fraser, or Jerry
Kroll (Party Spokesperson on Transportation) or Bradley Shende (Party
Spokesperson for income security).

Surrey-Delta Region

Instead of electing only four
Liberals and seven New Democrats, these voters would also have elected a Green
MLA, such as White Rock’s Bill Marshall or Surrey’s Aleksandra Muniak, or
Delta’s Jacquie Miller or Surrey’s Rita Fromholt.

North Shore Region

Instead
of electing only two NDP MLAs and three Liberal MLAs, these voters would also have
elected a Green Party MLA. Maybe Dana Taylor (he was a North Vancouver city
councilor), or Kim Darwin from the Sunshine Coast (she was President of the
Sechelt and District Chamber of Commerce), or Prof. Michael Markwick (Party
Spokesperson for Democratic Security and Human Rights)

Fast Boundaries version:

Suppose
the new government wanted to implement MMP without an entire Boundaries Hearing
process for the new electoral districts? They could use the existing 42 federal
electoral districts. The government would only have to choose the regions. Then, each region would also have enough
regional MLAs that the present numbers of MLAs from each district would be
unchanged. BC
would still have 87 MLAs: 42 local, 45 regional.

The North and the Cariboo
Region

It would have only three local MLAs, but would have seven regional MLAs. The
result would be the same as outlined above: six Liberals, three New Democrats
and a Green. The local result in Skeena—Bulkley Valley would have been very
close, but even if the Liberals won all three local seats, the NDP would have three
regional MLAs, the Greens one, and the Liberals three. Again, the regional MLAs
would be those candidates who got the most votes across the region (after
crossing off the regional list those who were elected as Local MLAs).

The Interior
including the Columbia—Kootenay Region and Kamloops

Because
the federal electoral district of Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon runs up to
Lillooet and Cache Creek, it includes 33.1% of the population of Fraser-Nicola,
and Chilliwack—Hope includes another 20.1%. Therefore, I have to count
Fraser-Nicola as part of the Fraser Valley-Langley Region, so this Interior
region has only 13 MLAs today. They will now have six local MLAs and seven
regional MLAs: five local Liberals and one local NDP, plus three regional NDP
MLAs, two regional Liberal MLAs, and two regional Green MLAs.

Fraser Valley-Langley Region

Adding
Fraser-Nicola, this region now has nine MLAs, and will continue to: four local
MLAs (all Liberals) and five regional: three NDP, one Green and one more
Liberal.

Province-wide

The province-wide
result is 38 Liberals, 35 NDP, and 14 Green. Again, this does not change the election
outcome, since the parties will form the coalitions they choose to form,
regardless which party has a few more seats than the other.

You have two votes. Your first vote
allows you to choose who you believe will be the best local representative,
just as we do today. Your second vote allows you to choose your preferred party
by voting directly for one of their candidates for Island-wide representative.
This second vote counts as a vote for that candidate’s party. It helps elect Island-wide
representatives for top-up seats.

PEI would still have 27 MLAs. That
will now become 18 local MLAs and 9 Island-wide MLAs, to top-up the local
results so the overall result will match the share of the votes cast for that
party. Every vote will count.

Back to PEI: if this MMP system had
been used in the 2015 election, how would it have worked out?

As Prof. Dennis Pilon says in this video: "Now keep in mind that, when
you change the voting system, you also change the incentives that affect the
kinds of decisions that voters might make. For instance, we know that, when
every vote counts, voters won't have to worry about splitting the vote, or
casting a strategic vote. Thus, we should expect that support for different
parties might change."

Progressive
Conservative voters would have elected seven local MLAs such as Matthew MacKay,
Jamie Fox, Brad Trivers, Sidney MacEwen, James Aylward, Darlene Compton, and Steven
Myers.

By
the percentage of the vote, Liberal voters deserved to elect 11 of the 28 MLAs,
so they need no top-up Island-wide MLAs. The PCs deserved to elect 10 MLAs, so
they elect another three MLAs as Island-wide MLAs. Who is elected? The three PC
candidates on the Island-wide ballot who got the most votes (after crossing off
those who already won a local seat). That might have been Colin LaVie, Rob
Lantz, and Mary Ellen McInnis or Linda
Clements.

Green
Party voters deserved to elect 3 MLAs. Maybe they would have been Peter
Bevan-Baker, Becka Viau, and Darcie
Lanthier.

NDP
voters deserved to elect 3 MLAs. Maybe they would have been Michael Redmond, Karalee
McAskill and Susan Birt or Peter Meggs.

Who
would form the government?

Who would form the government? It takes 14 votes
to pass legislation. A stable government would be a coalition between the
Liberals and either the Greens or the NDP. If the Liberal insisted on trying to
govern alone, another option would be a coalition of the PCs plus Greens plus
NDP. A third option, if coalitions were not possible, would be a minority
government with an accord (a “confidence-and-supply agreement”) where the
junior partner was free to move amendments and vote against government bills with
the exception of budget bills and matters of confidence. If all else fails, the
Liberals might form a minority government and bargain with the Greens and NDP
case-by-case to get support from one or the other.

2011 election

If this MMP system had been used in
the 2011 election, how would it have worked out?

Since the Liberals got over 50%,
they would have a majority government. With 51.4% of the vote they would have
14 MLAs. If they elected 14 Local MLAs as I think they would have, they would
have elected no Island-wide top-up MLAs. PC voters would have elected four Local
MLAs and seven Island-wide MLAs. Green and NDP voters would have elected one Island-wide
MLA each, such as Green leader Sharon Labchuk and NDP leader James Rodd or top
vote-getter Jacquie Robichaud. The 2007 election would have been just like
2011.

2000 election

An
interesting change would have been the 2000 election when PC Premier Pat Binns
won every seat but one. Under MMP he would have won 17 of the 18 local seats,
but Liberal voters would have elected 8 MLAs: one local, and seven Island-wide.
NDP voters would have re-elected Herb Dickieson as well as electing one other MLA
like Gary Robichaud, giving the legislature a real and more diverse opposition.

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Many people have said Canada needs “a
moderate proportional voting system.” Sure, Canadians
are not extremists. But what does that mean?

In the 2015 election, the Liberals
famously got 39.5% of the vote. (Actually, they got 39.8% of the five-party
vote.) Under perfect province-wide proportionality, they would elect 40.5% of the MPs,
but First Past The Post gifted them a “winner’s bonus” of 47 seats. In 2011
FPTP gifted Harper a “winner’s bonus” of 40 seats, in a smaller House.

On the votes cast in 2015, if you exclude
Green votes outside BC where they got less than 5%, the Liberals got 40.7% of
the votes, and under perfect province-wide proportionality they would elect 41.7%
of the MPs. In a conventional MMP model with 14-MP regions and counting all
Green votes, the Liberals elect 41.3% of the MPs.

In a more moderate 8-MP-region modelwith 38% top-up MPs, the Liberals elect 42.9% of the MPs, a bonus of
8 seats. Way better than the actual bonus of 47 seats. We can live with that.

The ranked ballot in
single-member ridings is off the table.

One
thing “moderately proportional” does NOT mean is the ranked ballot in
single-member ridings. The multi-party Electoral Reform Committee’s majority
report said the choice is between a good proportional system and
First-Past-The-Post. The Liberal minority report did not even mention the
ranked ballot. The Committee Chair, Liberal Francis Scarpallegia, said “no one
wants the ranked ballot.” A huge step forward.

Justin Trudeau promised to make every vote count.

A
recent Environics poll found 67% of Liberal voters feel the Liberal government
should keep its promise and move forward with reforming Canada’s voting system.
Only 10% disagreed, while 23% were unsure.

Canadians expect him to deliver
this promise in full and on time.

A Scott Simms-inspired model?

In a recent discussion with Newfoundland MP Scott Simms, former
Democratic Reform Critic for the Liberals, Simms agreed 10% top-up MPs was way
too light, but suggested 20%. Lord Jenkins’ Report in the UK recommended
15% to 20% top-up MPs. I cannot imagine two people
more different that Lord Jenkins and Scott Simms, yet they have the same
thought.

For
example, say we give each province 18.7% top-up MPs. Suppose we start by adding
44 top-up MPs to the House, by giving each province 10.5% more MPs and rounding
the number up. The neat feature of these numbers is that they give the Atlantic
provinces the 18.7% we want. The present 32 Atlantic ridings are unchanged,
like the 3 ridings of the Territories. (The 44 new seats includes 3 more MPs
for the Territories.) In the rest of Canada, we make enough of the present ridings
bigger to give each province 18.7% top-up MPs. This adds another 28 regional
MPs, cutting the number of local ridings to 310, each only 10% larger (outside Atlantic Canada). In total
we have 72 regional top-up MPs.

I
have done a simulation. With 32 regions, each with about 11 MPs today, outside
Altantic Canada they will each generally become 10 local MPs and 2 regional top-up
MPs.

Overly
moderate, too moderate for me. And yet, no false majority on the votes cast in 2015. The Liberals
get a bonus of 29 seats, but are 8 MPs short of a majority in the larger House. Interesting to look at.

This model still has many of the benefits of proportional
representation. Liberal voters now unrepresented elect MPs in non-metropolitan Alberta,
Vancouver Island, and the Barrie—Owen Sound region. And under-represented
Liberal voters elect more MPs in Saskatchewan, Calgary, Edmonton, the BC
Interior and North, and the London—Windsor region. Conservative voters
unrepresented in five of Quebec’s seven regions elect MPs, as do those in
Toronto, Peel Region, Northern Ontario, the north half of Metro Vancouver, Vancouver
Island, and Yukon. The Atlantic Provinces have six opposition MPs. NDP voters everywhere
outside PEI are represented. Even Green voters in Vancouver, Manitoba and
west-central Ontario elect MPs, and 14 in total after the Green vote doubles under PR.

And
as Prof. Dennis
Pilon says in this video "Now keep in mind that, when you change
the voting system, you also change the incentives that affect the kinds of
decisions that voters might make. For instance, we know that, when every vote
counts, voters won't have to worry about splitting the vote, or casting a
strategic vote. Thus, we should expect that support for different parties might
change."

“A moderate system”

Prof.
Nathalie Des Rosiers told the Electoral Reform Committee about the Law Commission
Report on Aug. 22 “We were trying to
maintain the good parts of the first past the post system while remedying the
bad parts. It was a moderate report that was aimed at helping Canadians and
Parliament grapple with this issue of electoral reform.” She mentioned
one-third top-up MPs.

Alex Boulerice responded “as the Scottish model
shows, even in the Westminster tradition, changes can be made toward a moderate
proportional voting system. I don't think anyone here would want our system to
become extreme.”

New Zealand’s 2012 MMP Review Commission said “The
system of MMP adopted by New Zealand in 1993 is a moderate form of proportional
representation which seeks to balance two important objectives. One is the
principle of proportionality: that a party’s share of seats should reflect its
share of the nationwide vote. The other is the need to ensure elections deliver
effective Parliaments and stable governments by avoiding an undue proliferation
of very small parties in Parliament.”

Oddly,
the Electoral Reform Committee never heard one witness advocate the full
Jenkins Commission Report, which was only 15% to 20% top-up MPs; deliberately
very moderate. Jenkins wrote:
“In considering the level of Top-up we are required
to balance carefully the potentially competing criteria set out in our terms of
reference. On the one hand the importance of maintaining the link between MPs
and their constituencies and the need to ensure stable government - to the
arguable extent that this requires single party majority government most of the
time - pushes towards keeping the level of Top-up as low as possible. On the
other hand the requirement to deliver broad proportionality would push us
towards a larger Top-up sufficient to correct, or at least substantially to
ameliorate, potential disproportional outcomes on the constituency side.. . . a Top-up of between 15%
and 20% of MPs would do sufficient justice to the three competing criteria
discussed above to be acceptable. . . . . . . . without producing any likelihood of a stagnant and unhealthy
prospect of constant and unchangeable coalition.”

Electoral Reform Committee Chair
Francis Scarpaleggia said on CBC Dec. 7: “I think you would want a moderate system
of proportionality that would still allow for majority governments.” I expect he meant the same thing as Jenkins: a moderate level of proportionality that would still
allow for some single-party majority governments.

So
we can promote moderate proportionality, as long as it is fairly proportional. Many
PR countries have a Gallagher index much less than five. Canada is a moderate
country, after all.

But not too
moderate

But this Scott Simms-inspired model is too moderate for me. Interesting
to look at, though.

About Me

Although I am a member of Fair Vote Canada's Council at the federal level, the views expressed on this blog are my own.
I have been a lawyer since 1971, an elected school trustee from 1982 to 1994, past chair of the Board of the Northumberland Community Legal Centre, and so on.